


Air

by Winterstar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Dystopia, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, kind of post Civil War, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 06:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6069607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hope, he learned, is an ugly thing. It allows people to ignore reality. It’s a fantasy wrapped up in optimism and sugar coated with acceptance. People who are hopeful are considered somehow better in society than those who are not, those who see the world that way it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Air

**Author's Note:**

> For my Cap-ironman bingo dystopia square.

The dust kicks up as he walks along the deserted road; hands stuffed deep in his jacket’s pockets. The chill of autumn settles across the landscape and he only owns the one jacket, torn and worn as it is. He hunches down, shoulders up to try and keep warm. The grayed out colors of a sunset buried behind the clouds fits his loneliness. He should appreciate the world around him; he used to do that – he used to be grateful. Yet, there’s little to hope for, there’s little to want because there’s nothing to have. 

He tries not to remember the fact that at one time in his long fragmented history he used to be a symbol of hope. Hope, he learned is an ugly thing. It allows people to ignore reality. It’s a fantasy wrapped up in optimism and sugar coated with acceptance. People who are hopeful are considered somehow better in society than those who are not, those who see the world the way it is. 

Hissing, he throws the memories to the trash heap in his head like every other memory or recollection he has. They are worthless in this world. Empty like the road, he continues onward. His one destination is escape. There’s no room for Captain America anymore - not when they world shattered and broke, not when the entirety of what he believes is right is not what the rest of the world thinks. Walking away is the only way.

They might call him Nomad but in reality he’s only nameless. He doesn’t hope, he doesn’t wish, he doesn’t try and piece the world back together again because the world doesn’t want to be fixed. That’s the thing, if the world wanted to be fixed wouldn’t people rise up from their shackles and try? 

No, people are blinded by the light – technology that could give them everything numbs them of everything. The world – the news flashes before them and it’s painful and ugly and there’s no way to stop it. Sure, he could put SHIELD in the Potomac, he could tear down the whole infrastructure of fraud and corruption but the only way it will clear itself from the system is by a purge. Everyone, every last soul on Earth needs to rise up and cleanse the system. Because the system has been infiltrated in quiet almost sacred way. The system has been contaminated from within and the disease grows and propagates. Nothing he can do can stop it now. He’s tried.

He’s tried.

Now.

Now, he’s tired.

Too tired to try anymore, so he walks away, down a dusty road and looks not for salvation or forgiveness but for somewhere warm he can forget everything – all of it. The old clockmen – that’s what he calls them – they are the ones who keep the world ticking the way they chose for it to click off time. The old clockmen plan and decide like witches over their brew. There’s nothing left for the rest of the world to do. No matter how many walls Steve rips down, there’s another. It is a horrifying nightmare that endlessly gives hope but ends in despair. He’s not trying anymore. 

He’s running.

And if he’s running he’s not Captain America anymore. Captain America would never run, would never bend to the will of others. But Steve is tired to his bones. He feels like he might be sick with it. He knows what sick feels like and this crushes into him like a blast of pneumonia so he cannot breathe or maybe he doesn’t want to breathe. Maybe he wants to sit down and forget about breathing for a while.

Maybe this gray day is it for him. 

He almost makes it to his destination. He’s at the end of the gravel street and there’s an old wooden fence that’s in need of repair. He could walk up the drive way that has grass overgrown and thick along the path. He could walk up to the cottage with its front porch and door waiting for him to knock.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he drops to his knees and decides he’s done trying, the fight is too much for him anymore. He cannot try because no one told him when he woke up that the world was a place of dystopia. No one told him that even good people succumb to the mindlessness – because it is easier, and so much less depressing that way. 

He stays at the edge of the driveway and then rolls over to the gully. He rest in it and stares up at the steel clouds as they shelter and threaten him at the same time. He rest there and wonders how long it would be until his body surrendered. It would take days, weeks, maybe months or years. The serum would try and save him. But maybe he could just turn into a mummy and desiccate here in the dirt. 

The first sprinkle of rain hits his cheek and he almost – almost wants to laugh. Here he is hoping to dry up and blow away and the damned cloud decides it’s time to rain. He doesn’t climb to his feet. He lets the rain hit him and it starts to pour. The rain no longer patters but becomes fierce and angry as it falls from the sky. He cannot even keep his eyes open. He doesn’t care, he stays in the mud and lets it wash over him as if in baptism. But this is no religious experience. This is the empty, barren life that’s left to him now in the world after everything happened. This is all he has left. 

He should get up and leave. The house is not his – it is not welcoming to him. He should find another place to lie down in the woods and let his body slowly become part of the gnarled roots and wet leaves of autumn. He closes his eyes and thinks about where he could go to become a corpse.

“Back to the ice,” he whispers. It is his only answer and, for the first time, he feels right.

“No.” 

The voice shocks him and he opens his eyes to see Tony standing over him. An umbrella in his hand and his face looks as weary as Steve feels. 

“Get up.”

For a moment, he thinks about denying him that much, but he gets up – wet and muddy. Tony looks him up and down, frowns. Here it is. Here is where Tony calls in the police to take him away. The world rots in so many ways. 

Instead, Tony reaches over and brushes the mud from Steve’s face and then holds his jaw for a moment. They are eye to eye since Steve is still technically standing in the gully. Tony’s expression is a ruin of emotions; they play across his face like frames in a film. First, anger, then regret, than pain, and finally loss.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

Steve doesn’t have an answer. He can only give one. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” He doesn’t add – any more – but he should.

“Come to laugh at me? Come to tell me I told you so?” Tony asks. His eyes – even though there’s despair – are razor sharp and cut into Steve.

The word tumbles out of Steve before he can stop himself. “No, no.”

“Then what?” Tony asks, he drops the umbrella and lets the full torrent of rain cover them. “Want to find out how Tony Stark deals with being exiled, from having no access to tech? From having no-.”

Steve stops him – stops him by pressing his lips against Tony’s mouth. The rain and thunder mix to crack the kiss, cause it to fissure and explode between them. Steve’s muddy hands are on Tony’s face. Tony grapples but doesn’t push away, in fact he drags him closer. Desperate and pained. It hurts like there are thorns blossoming in his chest, but Steve welcomes it.

It feels like something other than the numbness, the hopelessness.

It feels like breath.

It feels like air.

For the first time, he wants to take the next breath. When they break away, they both inhale as if they have both been starved of air for far too long.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://winterstar95.tumblr.com)


End file.
